A Miami developer is proposing to build a mostly residential, 1.1-million-square-foot mixed-used community in Upper Marlboro in what would be the firm’s first project in the region. Citing the growth potential in Prince George’s County, Global City Development wants to build about 400 multifamily units, 200 for-sale townhouses and 50,000 square feet of retail on 60 wooded acres just east of Joint Base Andrews. The site comprises two adjacent parcels, located at 9702 and 10200 Marlboro Pike, of which Global has a contract to acquire. “We believe that Prince George[’s] County is set to experience significant growth over the next several years,” Brian Pearl, a Global principal, said in an email.

This week, a group of determined women who have worked quietly behind the scenes to change the face of Maryland politics gathered at a woman-owned brewery in Prince George’s County. If they got a bit rowdy, there was good cause to celebrate. For 10 years, through Emerge Maryland, they have trained 175 Democratic women to run for office, with 17 more women getting ready to begin their training in 2023. This year the hard work yielded some great victories, among them Brooke Lierman, who will be Maryland’s first female comptroller, and Jessica Fitzwater, who eked out a narrow victory for county executive in purple Frederick County. Both are graduates of Emerge Maryland’s first class in 2013.

In late September, Maryland emergency rooms began seeing a surge in children — many of them very young — struggling to breathe because of Respiratory Syncytial Virus, known as RSV. According to a Maryland Department of Health dashboard that tracks the virus, the number of hospitalizations leapt from 33 in the last week of September to 257 in the final week of October. Because Maryland typically sees its RSV numbers spike in late November and December, this year’s surge sent emergency departments, urgent care centers and pediatricians scrambling. Thankfully, the state’s RSV case rate plateaued quickly. By the end of November, hospitalizations had been cut by two-thirds, to 88.

Starting this week, the Maryland Transportation Authority is shifting northbound Interstate 95 at the Maryland Route 152 interchange (Exit 74) in a new traffic pattern as part of its ongoing $1.1 billion program to relieve congestion and improve travel along the highway between Baltimore and Harford counties, according to a news release. This shift is expected to begin Thursday and continue through June 2023. Traffic will split with two lanes to the left and two lanes to the right of the work zone separated by a barrier on northbound I-95 between mile marker 73 and mile marker 75.

Towson University is committing to help students who are dealing with food insecurities. Estimates indicate almost 30% of college students don’t have enough food to get by in a single week. At Towson University, that translates to one in four students who are potentially food insecure. The university is reinstating its swipe donation program early next year. Students who end the week with a balance on their OneCards can choose to donate what’s left to classmates who are facing hunger issues.

Many Freedom Federal Credit Union members noticed fraudulent charges on their cards over the weekend, and some aren’t happy with how the situation was handled. The Bel-Air-based credit union, which as of June had more than 33,000 members and more than $420 million in total assets, announced on Friday that many of its members were experiencing unauthorized charges on their debit cards due to issues at Freedom’s third-party card services provider. The credit union has been working with impacted members to shut down accounts and issue refunds by the end of the day on Tuesday. The mass instances of fraud led to long lines at Freedom’s branches, and long waits for customers who called.

In the 1990s, Kim Holcomb battled for curbside recycling pickup as president of Owings Mills Green Action. She’s been interested in environmental issues ever since. And so, when she learned that Baltimore County would host Maryland’s first natural burial ground, Holcomb felt called to sign on for a plot. “It’s like the ultimate recycling to have a green burial,” said Holcomb, who now lives in Pikesville. “It’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust. And it makes a lot of sense to me.” A few other cemeteries in the state allow for natural burials, which bypass elaborate caskets, concrete vaults and traditional embalming in favor of simpler, biodegradable methods that allow a body to decompose in the earth.

Maryland legislators and environmental groups are urging Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration to adopt California’s new electric vehicle standards by the end of the year, or risk falling behind the Golden State. California’s regulation requires an increasing percentage of light-duty vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emission. By model year 2035, all new passenger cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the state will need to be electric, with a maximum of 20% of models being plug-in hybrids. The rule was approved by the California Air Resources Board in August, following a 2020 executive order from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.